Bitcoin Forum

Running through the news, I found this update from coindesk


 Bitcoin Layer-2 Network Stacks Begins Nakamoto Upgrade (https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/08/28/bitcoin-layer-2-network-stacks-begins-nakamoto-upgrade/)

Some of the reasons why Bitcoin have taken a back seat on serving as an actual currency aside from the fact that, there isn’t many merchants out there to accept it for a means of exchange is it’s scalability, given the fact that it’s highly volatile and takes some time for confirmation of transaction.

The news as it is has it that, Stacks which would serve as a layer 2 network to Bitcoin network would bring the gap between confirmation of transaction to ensure faster transactions, using Stacks as the reward to miners who are assigned mining periods to produce as many blocks as they could which would be settled on Bitcoin. All these would be done using a POT (Proof-of-Transfer) protocol with Bitcoin for a base currency.

Now the question is:
Was this expected?
Is this how to solve the scalability of Bitcoin?
How is the creation of more and more hard fork helping Bitcoin?
Is this something Bitcoiners would like?

I don’t know what you guys think but, I’ll like to read of it and encourage you guys to visit the link for more detail and a proper understanding of the article as, I might not be all grasping on how this could apply.

We have Lightning Network, MAP Protocol (MAP), Liquid Network, Rootstock and Stacks in addition to sidechains so the features provided by these networks are what will determine the number of users but the majority will prefer Lightning Network for low cost daily transactions. It is not a hard fork so it does not need network consensus.

Stacks seems to be more about adding smart contract functionality rather than increasing scalability. But yes, generally speaking I'd reckon Layer 2 solutions, though not Stacks specifically, would be the way to go.



To clarify for OP: The hard fork is happening on the Stacks Layer/Sidechain, not Bitcoin itself. So the Stacks team can do all the changes they want, without affecting the Bitcoin base layer.

Short answers,
1. I don't know, since i don't really follow Stacks development.
2. It's just one of many ways to solve scalability.
3. You're asking wrong question, since the hard fork happens on Stacks (the Layer 2), not Bitcoin network itself.
4. Who knows. But it's not part of Bitcoin protocol, so Bitcoiner who don't like it could just not use it.

The only reason for bitcoin not being used as a currency as much as it was expected is the fact that its price keeps going up in the long run. People don't tend to spend something that is worth $15k on Jan 2023 and $70k by March 2024 (360% in 14 months). It doesn't matter how scalable bitcoin is.

Considering the fact that people don't use Stacks to transact bitcoin, they use Stacks to create shittokens, I have to say no it is not the way to solve scalability.

It is not helping bitcoin either, because this is a separate network having its own separate protocol changing through a hard fork. And Bitcoiners don't usually like this sort of stuff (ie token platforms).

Many discussions about them are there

• Sidechain Observer - Bitcoin L2 Projects & current state of development (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5496743.0)

---

Generally when transaction speed is main concern, and priority is the speed, a blockchain must sacrifice other things including security. It's my understanding and if I move big fund, I don't pick these side chains that I only consider to use with small transactions.

Like if you want to get convenience and save your time, you use cross chain bridge, let's accept bigger risk. It's convenient, I agree but I don't like to take bigger risk.

Yes, I have planned to cover Stacks in the Sidechain Observer linked already by @tranthidung (if no other forum member wants :) ).

The Nakamoto upgrade however, afaik does still not activate sBTC, which would be activated in Q4 2024 according to their roadmap. (https://www.stacks.co/roadmap) The Nakamoto Upgrade (shameless namedropping, in my opinion) is however the requiremente for sBTC to work.

sBTC is the "decentralized bridge" which would convert Stacks effectively in a Bitcoin sidechain. Until then, Stacks is simply an altcoin.

I'm generally optimistic regarding layer-2's and sidechains in particular. In contrast to Lightning, they offer the advantage that you transact like on Bitcoin or other blockchains. You don't need to monitor your channel for possible fraud, and also merchants don't need to be online to receive payments.

However, Stacks, like most other L2 projects, has a big disadvantage in my opinion: It depends on an utility token which was premined and sold in an ICO. This is not only not good for decentralization, but probably will also not generate interest for the concept by die-hard Bitcoiners, who will continue to prefer L2s without premine, like Lightning.

AFAIK Stacks is however open source, so if it works it can be forked into a no-premine version ;D

IMO this is the way they market it, and for sure it's an advantage if you want to create complex DeFi stuff. But every sidechain, even Ethereum via tBTC (a more decentralized variant of wBTC), adds to Bitcoin's scalability.

Didn’t know we had a lot of them already, the LN seems to have cast a dark shadow on the rest and they don’t even get to make a name for themselves. Good to know this Nakamoto Bitcoin upgrade thing is a network just like LN which makes it outside of Bitcoin and a fully optional use.

I don’t see it to be what Bitcoin users actually want. Eventually, a lot of users or investors would want their transactions done on the Bitcoin blockchain and not some side network that would be a bridge to Bitcoin network.

Stacks in general is not like LN. It is somewhere between being a Second Layer (like LN) and a Side Chain and it is somewhat closer to being a side-chain. It has its own blocks, and more importantly its own consensus rules that can change easily by the centralized authority controlling the protocol like the Nakamoto Upgrade and you'll have to convert your bitcoins to the token that is present in that [side] chain with a peg.

You realize LN constitutes to ~1% of all Bitcoin transactions and that LN has it's own scalability issues and it's getting really centralized ?
No one but Bitcoin geeks use LN and it won't change, the project is a failure.

LN is going down as can be seen in the statistics:
https://bitcoinvisuals.com/lightning (https://bitcoinvisuals.com/lightning)

For so many years LN was the answer for all the Bitcoin scalability and privacy issues in all the discussions, now what ?

I would love to see something like LN to succeed because it's technology could be used in other projects as well.

Why buy coffee with BTC today when you can buy a coffee shop in a month? BTC's deflationary model doesn't really need another scaling.

By not using Bitcoin for everyday small purchases you are substantially limiting it's growth potential.

Demand for digital cash is much higher than the demand for "Digital real-estate" thingy, there are plenty other investment options far superior than Bitcoin.

Bitcoin "digital gold" / "digital real-estate" HODL narration has closed it's doors to the biggest market of them all.

If Bitcoin is not used as cash, the Proof of Work is not needed anymore.
We can as well just stop the chain completely and trade mnemonics for the associated coins like real-estate.

Stacks is an altcoin. Not a Layer 2. Let that sink in.

That's just baseless speculation, and you know it. In my opinion, people need a digital asset that serves as a hedge against inflation and a store of value more than they need anonymous digital cash. It's also misleading to claim there are "plenty of other investment options", unless you're a successful macro-investor. For the average person, buying Bitcoin outperforms any other asset as a store of value with minimal time commitment.

If demand for digital cash was higher, why does the market appreciate Bitcoin more than Monero?

Monero is steadily taking over Bitcoin in utility:

https://x.com/shopinbit/status/1811651225005195471
https://x.com/CoinCards/status/1809702144288882870

Re-read the question.

Price will follow demand, the demand is increasing.

Yes, however the demand for both is increasing; it's just that they're demanded for different reasons. I just don't see how you notice that the demand for medium of exchange is higher than for store of value.

PayPal is one of the examples where demand for a transaction processor is visible, demand for store of value is much lesser but Monero takes that cake too with privacy.
VISA/Mastercard are another.

There's no reason to go back to Bitcoin when you switch to Monero, at least not for me.

What if the population decreases rapidly in the future, while Monero will keep churning out new coins in eternity?

Don't you think the deflationary nature of BTC will shine for a store of value?

Store of what value ? what value does it have if it's not used for anything else aside from speculation ?

If population decreased drastically (I suppose WW3 or Alien attack), then the crypto they hold would most probably disappear with them.
We need new supply to replenish the lost coins.

Gold has seen several generations and centuries yet, it’s been valued all the same. Why is that? It’s because, value is places where people sense it to be. It’s more of what the mind thinks or attributes to certain objects due to how rare it is and not because, there isn’t sufficient of this and that element.

As such, Bitcoin is a scares commodity, that makes it rare and has value to it. Now, it’s not unusual that people might seem to preserve that value within it by holding.

With so many nukes in our world today, you’ll just hope we don’t have some crazy leader somewhere on the planet decide to let it rain on us because, we really would have the world greatly reduced. Perhaps they could go the way they’ve been going as some theories speculates, Ebola, Covid, vaccinations and leave war alone.

Even in the face of all that, we would t need anything new for crypto replacement or replenishment. In fact, those who has it as am sure there would be some percentage of people that would own it even still. The government do own cryptos. Not like they bought or something but, the seized ones at least. Let’s not forget where it is legal tender and amongst its citizens.

It just wouldn’t go out but, would find itself having more value and the lost ones due to deceased owners, lost wallets and private keys, lack of the technology to work it would only add to the scarcity and those who owns what need be to work theres. Maybe it might take time but, survivals would gradually clamor back to the system.

There is a common misconception about "lost coins". If you drop half wheat flour in existence into the ocean, it will not be consumed by anyone, therefore it is considered lost-- people now have half of that good than they had before. But, money is never lost; it is only transferred. If you throw $10T into the ocean, the total goods and services remain the same. It's just that, due to decline in money supply, they are priced higher.

This guy is more concise than I am:

That’s what is referred as a blessing in disguise and what a better way to put it:

“A donation to everyone else”!

One man’s misfortune becoming every holders blessing in such a way that, no one gets cheated but actually rewarded for holding and based on the volume of their holdings.

A little "back to topic" post: As a forum user in the Spanish forum asked me, I've investigated the approximate date when the Nakamoto upgraded protocol will be activated on Stacks, according to the roadmap. I think for those interested in this or in sidechains in general it might be a good idea to post my conclusions in English too.

Disclaimer: This is my interpretation of the official Stacks documents. Unfortunately these documents are a bit "stingy" with information about the exact block heights when the different Nakamoto phases will be activated, and the Stacks block explorers do not show the number of the cycle we're in currently.

---

Nakamoto upgrade is activated in two phases according to the Rollout Plan document (https://docs.stacks.co/nakamoto-upgrade/nakamoto-rollout-plan):

First phase: "Instantation" of Nakamoto (August 28, Bitcoin block 840360). The code was updated but there was still no rule change. Done.

Second phase: Nakamoto activation - from August 28 on, has three steps:

- First step: A "pause" cycle (cycle 92) where the Stacks signers (consensus participants) can update their client software to the Nakamoto code. We're currently in this phase (September 8, 2024).
- Second step: In cycle 93 the signers vote for a hard fork block. This cycle begins at Stacks block 166121 which corresponds to Bitcoin block 861350. The new signers are confirmed on Bitcoin block 861,500, and this will be the block when voting begins.
- Third step: The actual Nakamoto hard fork with the rule changes. The exact block will be decided from around September 15 to September 29/30 (it's currently 981 10-minute blocks ahead). This means that probably the hard fork will take place in October, although it may be already happening in the last days of September.

sBTC, the new bridge based on a dynamic federation, according to the documents will be activated about 4 weeks after the hard fork. So this will probably take place in November 2024.

First of all, the purpose of stacks is to allow bitcoin’s functionality to work better without hard forking. It is a completely different project that is only connected to the blockchain of bitcoin but not a hard fork. It doesn’t change anything to bitcoin’s protocol. Stacks is closer to a bitcoin layer.

To answer your question, hard forks are trying to improve and address all the other problems in the blockchain but it also brings great risks because it challenges the security and stability of the blockchain.
It may seem promising but I don’t think it would be the magic solution to bitcoin’s scalability issues. It might help but I am almost certain it will not contribute greatly and magically change the system. But I would be happy to be proved wrong.